In January 2008, I raised my right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

That oath has no expiration date. For eight years, I have paid the price for taking it seriously. 

My name is Matthew Reardon — otherwise known by my Pseudonym name, Don Matthews. I am a United States Marine Corps veteran, an investigative journalist, a Civil Rights Activist and Litigator, Songwriter and Producer of Bad Actors: Volume 1 and soon to release Volume 2, and the founder of We The People News (WTPNews.org) as well as the Civil Rights Hub (www.civilrightshub.org). I am compassionately leaning on the hearts of those reading this to help me to survive long enough to finish the fight that may be the most important civil rights case you've never heard of. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

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It started in 2017 when I peacefully protested on the grounds of the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Mississippi — holding the state flag, exercising my First and Second Amendment rights, saying nothing. A deputy asked for a "permit." I cited the First Amendment. He started counting. When I walked away and asked for his badge number, he tackled me to the ground and arrested me. 

I was arrested for asking a law enforcement officer to identify himself. 

That arrest was just the first domino. What followed was an eight-year campaign of retaliation by Lafayette County officials — a coordinated, documented, and escalating assault on my constitutional rights that has cost me nearly everything. 

THE COST 

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▪ 11 months in a Texas jail — on a fabricated felony charge built on evidence that didn't exist, sustained by a perjurious letter from a Mississippi official who conspired across state lines to keep me locked up. 

▪ Involuntary psychiatric commitments — initiated within 24 hours of exercising my constitutional rights, based on a sworn affidavit from a mental health supervisor who later admitted on a recorded phone call that her sole source of information was the sheriff I was suing. 

▪ My son born 12 weeks premature — 2 pounds, 1 ounce. Months on a ventilator. A surgical feeding tube in his stomach before he was old enough to understand what a stomach was. His premature birth was triggered by the stress of deputies following his mother home from the hospital and forcibly removing me from the house while she was being treated for pregnancy complications. 

▪ Banished from my own county — TWICE — two separate five-year banishments from Lafayette County, Mississippi, where my children still live. To this day, I cannot go there. I have not seen or spoken to my oldest daughter Lydia in almost five years. 

▪ Financial ruin — my vehicle seized and auctioned while I sat in a jail cell. My wife terminated from her job. A $27.5 million federal civil rights lawsuit — the case that was supposed to hold these officials accountable — derailed by a felony charge filed three weeks after the court ordered service on the defendants. 

▪ 6 months at Parchman — Mississippi's notorious state penitentiary — on a sentence that was later vacated as illegal by the MacArthur Justice Center, one of the nation's premier civil rights legal organizations. The sentence exceeded the statutory maximum by a year and nine months. 

▪ 5 children who have known nothing but a father at war with the system for most of their lives. My stepdaughter Meri-Emmelyn was seven years old when she looked up at me in a parking lot surrounded by deputies and asked, "Mr. Matt, are those police officers going to shoot you?" No child should ever have to ask that question. But she had seen enough to know it wasn't irrational — it was observational. 

WHAT THE EVIDENCE PROVES 

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This is not a story that depends on trust. It depends on evidence — and there is a mountain of it: 

✓ Lab results proving 0.00% BAC — a police officer in Texas testified under oath that my blood tests were positive for alcohol. The actual laboratory results showed zero. Not a trace. Not a fraction. Zero. 

✓ The Busby Letter — a perjurious letter sent from the Lafayette County Circuit Clerk's office in Mississippi to the Galveston County District Attorney's office in Texas. This letter kept me locked in a jail cell for 11 months. It is now Exhibit A in a federal civil rights lawsuit. 

✓ Mississippi Court of Appeals vindication — the appellate court sided with my legal arguments and recognized the violations of my rights. 

✓ MacArthur Justice Center involvement — one of the nation's premier civil rights legal organizations took my case and proved my sentence was illegal, exceeding the statutory maximum by a year and nine months. 

✓ Recorded admissions — the mental health supervisor who signed my involuntary commitment affidavit admitted on a recorded telephone call that her sole source of information was Sheriff East — the same sheriff whose deputies had been caught lying under oath in my cases. 

✓ Destroyed surveillance footage — in both Mississippi AND a federal courthouse in Louisiana, critical video evidence that would have exonerated me was "lost" or "went white." In Mississippi, the footage was acknowledged as "gone forever." In a federal courthouse, the U.S. Marshals blamed a "technological error." Two separate jurisdictions. Same pattern. Same result. 

✓ FOIA records exposing improper communications between U.S. Marshals and the federal judge pool, leading to judicial recusals. 

✓ DA refuses all charges (May 2026) — the Orleans Parish District Attorney refused every single charge against me after I was physically assaulted by a security guard at New Orleans City Hall while conducting journalism, citing Code 433: "Law Enforcement Issue." 

Every claim is backed by court filings, police reports, laboratory results, recorded phone calls, bodycam footage, FOIA responses, published judicial opinions, and sworn testimony. All of it is documented in my book "American Injustice" and on my investigative news platform WTPNews.org. 

WHY I NEED HELP NOW 

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I am fighting on multiple fronts simultaneously: 

▪ A pending federal civil rights lawsuit — the case that is supposed to hold Lafayette County officials accountable for eight years of retaliation. I am representing myself pro se against defendants with unlimited taxpayer-funded legal resources. Every motion, every exhibit, every filing costs money I don't have. 

▪ Active litigation across multiple states — I am currently traversing between Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas for ongoing legal matters and litigation. Every trip to a federal courthouse is a plane ticket or a tank of gas I can't afford — but can't afford to miss. 

▪ Active investigative journalism — We The People News has published over 100 investigative articles exposing corruption, civil rights violations, and government misconduct across Mississippi and the Southeast. Over 3,000 YouTube subscribers follow this work. This journalism has made me a target, but it has also made the truth impossible to bury. 

▪ "American Injustice" — the book — a comprehensive, evidence-backed account of every arrest, every commitment, every fabricated charge, every forged document, every destroyed recording. Eight years of documentation in a single volume. Currently in final preparation for publication. 

▪ Basic survival — after years of incarceration, banishment, destroyed credit, and seized property, I am rebuilding from nothing. Every dollar that goes to survival is a dollar that doesn't go to the legal fight. After everything they've taken, they're still collecting child support — making everything harder for the other kids while ensuring I can never get close enough to be their father. 

WHAT YOUR DONATION SUPPORTS 

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Here's exactly where your money goes: 

▪ $25 — keeps WTPNews.org online for another month 

▪ $30 — one body-worn camera video request (I haven't been able to afford these in months, and they are critical evidence in my lawsuits). 5 per month is a minimum of $150. 

▪ $100-$200 - Printing costs alone associated with active cases. 

▪ $300-$500 — one month of fuel traversing between Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas for court hearings I cannot miss 

▪ $500 — helps publish "American Injustice" and put the evidence into the permanent public record 

▪ $5,000 - various additional legal costs: deposition fees, certified copies, public records requests, service of process 

▪ Deposition costs for ongoing civil rights lawsuits — depositions are how you get officials on the record under oath, and they are expensive. They account for the majority of the aforementioned. 

▪ Public records and FOIA requests — every document I've obtained has proven what I've been saying. There are more to get. 

▪ A hotel room — I have been sleeping in my car between court hearings in different states. A few hours of rest in an actual bed between hearings would mean I show up sharper, better prepared, and ready to fight. 

Car Repairs and Maintenance- $3000. There are major repairs to my transportation needed ASAP! Most critical at the moment is not having working Air Conditioning and more recently the fan blower went out which completely stopped all circulation of air except for a window being down. 

I can't walk away from these cases. Walking away would spell disaster — for my children, for the lawsuits, for the people whose stories I'm telling. The system is counting on me running out of resources before they run out of taxpayer money. I refuse to let that happen. 

WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND MY FAMILY 

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Every small town in America has its power structure. What happened in Lafayette County — officials using badges, gavels, commitment papers, and letterheads to silence a critic — can happen anywhere. It IS happening. Right now. To people who don't have the documentation, the training, or the stubborn refusal to quit that a United States Marine brings to the fight. 
 
For most people who encounter this reality, the story ends quickly. They get arrested once. They get the message. They shut up. They move on. They tell themselves it isn't worth it. 

Someone has to be the case that gets documented. Someone has to fight long enough and document thoroughly enough that the pattern becomes visible — not just to lawyers and judges, but to the public whose tax dollars fund the badges and the jails and the courts. 

I am that someone. I have the evidence. I have the documentation. I have the federal case. What I don't have is the resources to finish the fight. 

The machine that tried to silence me for eight years did not win. I am still here. I am still writing. I am still filing. I am still documenting. 

But I cannot do it alone. 

HOW YOU CAN HELP 

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Donate — every dollar has a job. $25 keeps the website alive. $30 gets a body camera video into evidence. $300 gets me to a courthouse. $1,000 covers a month of legal costs. There is no amount too small. 

Share this campaign — this is the single most powerful thing you can do. The system that did this has unlimited taxpayer-funded resources. I have you. Every share multiplies the reach and brings this fight closer to people who care about constitutional rights, veterans' issues, press freedom, and government accountability. 

Read the evidence yourself — visit WTPNews.org and see over 100 investigative articles. Subscribe to Patriot News Activism on YouTube. Read the court documents. Watch the videos. The evidence speaks for itself. 

"The oath I took at twenty has no expiration date. That is not a slogan. It is the thesis of this book, and it is the lived experience of the eight years that follow." 
 
— Matthew Reardon AKA Don Matthews

Civil Rights Activist and Litigator 

Investigative Journalist 

Founder of We The People News 

Author of "American Injustice" 

Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful. 

The oath never expires. 

Neither does the fight.

Steve Butler

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